The Washington Post's media-spread error about Trump's Georgia call shows the deceitful playbook first invented to undermine Trump and promote Russiagate.
I was a true believer on this and followed Maddow faithfully for most of the time during Obama's presidency and then through Trump's. She is incredibly persuasive in how she mines stories and digs up facts, so much so that it was very easy to fall into this trap. I read every book on Putin. I read Maddow's book. I believed all of the lines were clearly drawn to prove that he was a groomed Russian stooge. Watch the many movies on streaming about it. It is still absolutely true in the minds of most on the left. That was only the beginning of the hysteria, though. Now that Trump is gone it does not show signs of calming down. In fact, Maddow and everyone at MSNBC and CNN and in the mainstream press continue to behave as though they are STILL oppressed by the fear of Trump. January 6 was their Reichstag Fire to attain absolute power through fear - power across the board. What's most shocking is how the media is just willingly going along with it even now. That Washington Post story is a scandal and yet do a google search and the only stories that come up are on Fox and Newsweek. It should be at such a level of scandal people lose their jobs. But do you think they will? No. Moreover, when you have a media that essentially installed a president they are now invested in defending that president, their administration and all that goes along with it. Thus, they can't begin to untangle the fusion of government and media.
I had a different evolution. I was always a free-market, small government libertarian. Republican, but mostly a natural contrarian and cynical of all politics. I started out thinking Trump was just a clown. But I ended up becoming a pro-Trump partisan simply as a reaction to the insanity of his opponents.
I would never blame anyone for honestly saying they hate Trump because of his obnoxious style or because they disagree with policy X, Y, or Z. I would totally respect that. But instead, the supposed "adults" of our establishments went collectively insane. It was 24/7 calling him and his supporters "nazis," "fascists," rapists, racists, foreign spies. And just lying nonstop about everything. Instead of trying to persuade anyone on policies it was all prosecutions, political frame-jobs, impeachments and deep state sabotage by the "Resistance."
And don't get me started about the coronavirus.
Anyway, with all the things wrong with Trump (and of course there are plenty), he was right that our elite institutions are a big fetid "swamp" in need of drainage.
Well said. I see myself as in the same boat. And I know that because the coverage of Trump has been so hysterical, devoid of any semblance of balance & honesty, the corporate media has pushed me towards Trump, giving him the image of a beleaguered hero against a horde of lying lackeys. They make it difficult to asses Trump soberly. I wish there were a few hundred Greenwalds & Taibbies. The media is our biggest problem.
I couldn't stomach Trump from the git-go. But in America we are drawn to the underdog. The "intelligence" agencies and their media lapdogs did the miraculous. They managed to turn the well-connected, real estate tycoon "billionaire," tv star Donald Trump into the unlikeliest of underdogs. I found myself reflexively defending him at every breaking news garbage dump. Since almost every story against him turned out to be false, it was impossible not to feel sorry for him. While I still can't stand the sight of him, my relationship with MSM is irrevocably severed. And, for me, George Bush, not Trump, is the worst president in U.S. history.
Yes! Trump is a repulsive figure. I confess I appreciate his attempts to avoid slaughtering innocents in stupid-yet-lucrative wars, and to decouple from China, but he is a sort of anti-leader, cruel parody of a statesman. But the rehabilitation of Bush makes me sick. The photo of a grinning Dubya & Michelle says it all. So yes, I concur entirely that Bush II was the worst president by a mile.
I feel the same way, Donna. I once asked my (Russia-gate espousing) friend "If everything you say is true about Trump, how many people died? Compare that to Iraq?" He couldn't answer it.
I'll never understand how thinking, logical people find it impossible to make assessments based on simple common sense principles -- at least when it comes to Trump. Bush, aided and abetted by Cheney, was an ignorant, lying, dangerous, mass-murdering, cold-hearted, gleefully torturing, villainous nightmare. Somehow the media turned bumbling Trump into Hitler. And people fell for it by the millions. I'm still bewildered by it all.
As Glenn and many others pointed out during the administration, the exact same Congress members who called him a racist, a Russian colluder, and a threat to our democracy, were often the very same ones voting to give him greater powers. The only thing worse than our elites' cowardice is their mendacity.
I saw/see myself as Trump tolerant, but not a supporter. This is how I have felt about all presidents in my lifetime. Admit, though, that I feel very sorry for the dumb bastard devolving into Chewbacca-in-Chief before our very eyes.
Take heart, Sasha - MSM is also ignoring the developing story of more Americans beginning to wake up and seeing the "Government/Media Fusion" for what it is and rejecting corporate media. You won't see their crumbling faith in google search either.
That Hannah Arendt quote is sold gold! She never fails to impress me. Here’s some more from Hannah:
It has frequently been observed that terror can rule absolutely only over people who are isolated against each other and that therefore one of the primary concerns of tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from people acting together, acting in concert; isolated people are powerless by definition.
Congratulations on escaping the cave! Other than Maddow's persuasive effect, were there other reasons you accepted these stories? What priors did you have that might have made these stories seem credible? And, most important, what changed your mind?
I know two people--one in her 80s and one in his 60s-- who had never paid attention to politics until they were hypnotized by Maddow. They would repeat the same stories with the same phrases to me and they did not know each other. One thing they had in common is that they were lonely and watched a lot of TV.
It's all kind of mind blowing to me as I always thought I was a skeptical person, an atheist, etc. But I really was about as tribal of a centrist Democrat as you could possibly imagine. I was one of the blue checks on Twitter going after people like Glenn here. He still has me blocked on Twitter. I really don't understand why things came tumbling down for me but they did. I just saw how much of an illusion it was this past year and from then on I could no longer watch MSNBC or CNN or even read The NY Times or listen to NPR. It all just seemed like propaganda all of a sudden. I am still having a hard time finding a way to just get actual news. Or to find some sort of fairness. I can't really articulate it. But once the spell was broken then I could read Glenn, I could read Taibbi, I could listen to conservatives or people like Joe Rogan who were verboten. I just felt like I was finally able to have the ability to listen and read and learn without feeling like I was betraying my tribe.
"an atheist" is another badge to lose as an acknowledgment of some enlightenment. As it obviously does not mean you can not believe in something quite religiously.
The breaking point for me was the pandemic and the protests and how they were being covered, but specifically the freak out at the Times over the Tom Cotton essay. What I saw was Left Twitter joining forces to pressure the Times to fire James Bennett then rationalizing all the reasons why that was the right thing to do. But also the whole "mostly peaceful protests" gaslighting and how the media was essentially rigging an election before our eyes and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It never really got any better. There was never any balance. But I did migrate around to get different POVs. The pandemic was a complete absurdity -- a political party so invested in winning an election they were willing to crash the economy just so they could blame Trump. When the protests happened the pandemic disappeared but either way the story had to be told only one way. Now I know it was planned out and orchestrated -- but back then I thought I was losing my mind. Glenn and Matt Taibbi are among the few who will report on things journalists will not. And that makes them of so much much value to me - and it makes them dangerous. I'm sure Substack won't last.
"The pandemic was a complete absurdity -- a political party so invested in winning an election they were willing to crash the economy just so they could blame Trump. When the protests happened the pandemic disappeared but either way the story had to be told only one way. Now I know it was planned out and orchestrated -- but back then I thought I was losing my mind."
Bravo. Exactly right. A hearty welcome to the reality-based community.
I am hopeful that sooner or later this orchestrated "pandemic" will be the catalyst for a general awakening. There is a ruling class that feeding off all of us that has become expert at implementing a tactic familiar to the Romans:
Divide et impera.
While they have the rest of us distracted fighting over red vs. blue, racism, masks, insurrections, Iranian and Russian boogeymen and invisible greenhouse gases, they are laughing all the way to the bank.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
~H. L. Mencken
It has been my experience that the realization has to come individually, and usually cannot be accelerated by the presentation of facts and reason to the victim.
The best one can do, perhaps, it to lay the groundwork for the next head to emerge from the sand so they know they are not alone when they finally see the sun.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
– Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841
They're coming for substack for sure. I cancelled my Amazon Prime account after they de-platformed Parler (which Glenn testified eloquently on before Congress; my favorite GG essay by FAR). But until enough people demand the restoration of freedom of speech, WITH THEIR WALLETS, this madness will just continue.
I went a little further and cancelled cable and Amazon Prime No more Starbucks also, giving Duck-Duck-Go and Telegram my business. I rather spend my $ on GG and Taibbi.
On canceling Prime, I considered the same but as I understand it, they were unable to procure cloud hosting services from any other US providers. That seems insane to me but in this day and age, it is believable. Would you shutter your Google account and Microsoft O365 subscription too? What about your Xbox Live account and your iPhone? They were all complicit in some way. I don't know the answer here. Just a question.
I'm undecided about how political lockdowns were. There was already a tendency to overhype pandemics before Trump and during this one a lot of people died. At least in theory, lockdowns could help, although any real-world benefit seems modest. Is the CDC so persuasive that they bamboozled the whole Western world into these same policies? A pandemic response under Hillary Clinton might well have been similar, just that she would have been blamed less.
The trouble is, they kept moving the goalposts. (First it was a few weeks to level the curve; eg. make sure we have enough hospital beds. Then eventually it became "until we have a vaccine" - now it's "until EVERYONE is vaccinated").
And the lockdowns were different by state. You can just compare NY to FL and see the difference politics make.
But could Hilary Clinton possibly have worked with industry leaders to get all the supplies (PPE, ventilators, etc.) provided in excellent time, and to coordinate research and production of the vaccines in record time? President Trump had decades of experience getting companies to work together on his projects; Clinton had minimal executive experience.
I believe the main reason why this pandemic killed so many ppl was the division within the country. Many blue states took it too far. It became a race to trash Trump and his administration.
The key to exposing the real position of the Lefties is to take a public stance hard to the left of them and make noise with it.
They don't want to go back to school this school year? Demand at a school board meeting that you know hundreds of teachers who don't want to go back next year either and we all ought to just accept that our kids won't be back in in class school until 2023 at the earliest..in the fall.
You have to get to the woke side of a wokeist to expose how woke they really are.
Sure you're just gaslighting them..but isn't that what they're doing to us?
Substack will be fine. It's easy to host Substack since it doesn't involve a bunch of server hits constantly. Social media requires the ability to ramp instantly up when a company grows, but Substack is basically just a blog platform. AWS could kick it off (if it's hosted on AWS), and it can readily find a new home.
Good for you, Sasha. It took living in South America for me to realize that everything I believed politically had so little benefit to making the world a better place. I trust Glenn has learned much from his host country, my beloved Brasil, which is a beautiful, flawed nation where hypocrisy can be swallowed hole, unlike here in the US where we actually believe ourselves. As have you now, I became skeptical of everything and have found far greater satisfaction in the direct, harsh sun than in the comfort of the shadows.
So many people have been unquestionably taken in by Maddow and her fellow partisan propagandists. Maddow has done as much harm to her viewers as FOX News did when Roger Ailes ran the show.
Sasha Stone, I was a loyalist to Rachel Maddow until the 2016 Democratic Primary when she hosted the first debate with Bernie Sanders. She had previously been cordial to Bernie, but that night she venomously attacked him. I was shocked and never trusted her again. She only got worse and worse. I can't even look at that evil liar anymore. She rubs her hands together when she gets going like the cruel witch she is. Welcome back to the living.
Sasha, you could maybe add Tammy Bruce and Leo Terrell to a list of conservative view points, both are "reformed liberals". I would also suggest reading Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams (unfortunately now deceased).
My aunt, who was addicted to MSNBC and QVC, would agree to watch house remodeling shows and cooking shows when I visited--and we would talk the entire time. She just wanted company and was, in fact, very good company herself. She formed the same emotional attachments to MSNBC anchors as she did to QVC hosts, and would talk with concern about Katy Tur's rough pregnancy and Marie Osmond's health problems. I suspect that propagandists have learned a lot from QVC and its "easy pay" scam and its method of enmeshing viewers in hosts' lives.
I'm heartened to read your comment. I went through a similar transition away from the left about 20 years ago, but the media and societal environment wasn't quite as charged back then, so mine was much slower. I'd like to report that it gets easier, but, sadly, it doesn't in our highly conformist and increasingly tribal society. Regardless, truth and principles are more important, and Greenwald has provided all of us a profile in courage for years now, and it's not really about left/right. He's my favorite journalist, and I doubt we generally or ever vote the same since I've been center/right for many years. Actual liberals like Greenwald and a few brave others are ESSENTIAL to a functioning society with a commitment to civil liberties. I haven't shared any articles by conservative writers about all of the civil liberties shenanigans since 1/8, but I've shared a number of columns from this substack. These days I get a lot of crap from both the left and the right. It doesn't matter - what matters is the commitment to liberalism, the bedrock of our society and civilization. Truth matters. Stay strong!
I'm a liberal who finally quit the Democratic Party after 49 years. The party left me years before that. The essence of liberalism is tolerance, something I don't see today in any part of the Vast Woke-Wing Conspiracy. I'm a fan of the US Constitution, admire its brilliance and the liberties it enables.
The consequences of the Folie a Deux playing itself out in the media are serious. The false narrative of the Georgia phone call and the equally false narrative of Officer Sicknick's death both made their way into the impeachment documents. Will they be amended, or will they be used as documentary "proof" of false narratives?
Along with civility, journalism and our economy, we're destroying the profession of historians. That may prove to be the worst sin of all.
The truly sad part is that there are equally good, hard working people on the other side of the aisle being duped by RHINO Fox News just like folks on the left are by MSNBC. I’m so sick of good folks being played way above and beyond what is par for modern democratic government. The internet has driven disinformation into HYPER SPEED. Crazy...
What about Benghazi? What did Foxnews do that was bad reporting there? I certainly know that the MSM took Hillary's story about some filmmaker being the cause of the riots that eventually led to the deaths of four Americans, one of whom was a friend of Hillary's. (That's loyalty for ya!).
>Now that Trump is gone it does not show signs of calming down.
It's the only thing that has kept them in business. They have nothing else, so they have to push this even harder. I think Mr. Greenwald has said a fair bit about this and I know several other journalists/commentators I listen to/read have. They'll keep milking this cow until it's bone dry and then they'll slaughter the cow.
That you were a true believer who eventually saw through it is evidence, imo, that as they keep pushing, more and more people will get wise to the game. How much damage will be done before these modern-day muckrakers join the yellow journalists of the past is scary to think about, but this stuff doesn't just go on without end. Take heart, buckle down, and keep talking to people. As long as we're talking to each other, we're less likely to start fighting.
Maddow was sued a year or two ago by another station, I think OAN, but it doesn’t matter. The charge was that Maddow accused the other reporter of something ridiculous, like being a Russian agent. Maddow’s defense attorney offered, in defense of his client, that no one actually believes Maddow anyway, so no harm was done to the other reporter. It worked. Imagine your defense being—- no one believes what you say. That’s how ridiculous she has always been.
There is no accountability on the left. The Obama admin spied on an opposition presidential candidate and no one was held responsible. Leaders of security services routinely lie to Congress and are not held responsible. The left and the Media savage a Supreme Court nominee and lie and no one is held accountable. But dare to gather in DC and question an obviously fraudulent election and the FBI will send APC”s to your doorstep. I wonder how long you can push people and deny justice before the breaking point
Thank you for your comments here and below, Sasha, and to those posing questions about your process. I went through the same thing during President Obama's last term. Life has become much more interesting; living in the world of ideas - all sorts of them. It happened little by little for me; bits here and there that didn't add up and I knew not to be true. But it was the media, their blatant dishonesty, and gaslighting that led the way.
what you point to is for each of us to do an honest assessment of what makes this nation great and what are things that you do that make it great, and what can you do tomorrow to make it better?
Once you find that True North and your Objective Truth, don't let the Nihilists, Anarchists, NeoLiberals or NeoConfederates or anyone else move you off that position. Read more...watch less tv.
I actually watch Jimmy Dore a lot and more podcasts and subscriber to 3 writers here along with paid subscriptions to National Review, Wall Street Journal and China Today,
Russia may be a provocateur, but they don't own a $1.5 billion private equity fund in which our US President owns a 10% stake while sharing with family his disappointment that he's always had to give 1/2 his income to "Pops".
When we have a guy in the White House who is mentally struggling and we have ample evidence that he and his son own a $150,000,000 stake in a CCP owned private equity fund, you can begin to understand why taking Hong Kong and Taiwan and the South China Sea will appear to be taking candy from a baby..in exchange for reasserting support for the Paris Climate Accord targets that hold them to account of NADA!!!
I did a DuckDuckGo search just now (200 pm CDT) and there are articles in The Hill (objective) and Vox (biased in favor of the Post). Nothing in the NY Times. Nothing in CBS News ...
Well, you see they all are the erudite elite who "know better than we" ignorant masses. They have been "trained [indoctrinated]" in prominent universities by learned professors.
Those learned professors went to school when they were six years old and never left school. The are still there indoctrinating students with their six year old mind's stratospheric fairy tale ideals. They indoctrinate their mindless dupes to ram into everyone those fairy tale ideals, non-functional far down on an earth full of very non-ideal people.
So you see now the media propagandists using many standard propaganda tricks, like leaving out any contrary information, adding neutral information feigning it as "opposing" thought, stitching together barely or non-related events (Maddow is particularly adept at that), presenting comment snippets out of context to distort the comment making it seem other than it was, many more tricks, and even lies now.
Congratulations for opening your eyes. Sadly ever mindless emoters gladly eat up the propaganda crap just because they like its "feel." Their mindlessness never notices what twisted crap it is. Propaganda traps are always intended to evoke feeling and discourage thinking. The propagandists know if their suckers begin thinking their fraud could be discovered.
That very successful propaganda crap has removed a very “bad daddy” the spoiled and sheltered elite children in adult bodies (also knowing better than the “ignorant” people) hated. Now the elite little children have a wonderful new “daddy and mommy” smiley-faced tyrants who “know even more so better than the rest of us.”
The prior probability of Trump being Putin's favored candidate seemed very small to me. First of all, Clinton, an abject political mediocrity if there ever was one, was a known quantity. Under 8 years of Obama/Clinton/Kerry, Putin had advanced from a near-nonentity to major player on the world stage. Why on earth would he want a wild card like Trump, especially when Trump was promising a variety of moves that would hurt Russia? For a coldly calculating bureaucrat like Putin to gamble on Trump made no sense. The notion that Putin had tons of dirt on Trump made no sense either. Consider Hillary's "charitable foundation" slush fund. Even several of my committed Trump-hating friends admit the "foundation," and Hillary's behavior stuffing it with cash, are a scandal that should have resulted in criminal prosecution. There is no evidence of any such scandal involving Trump.
Maddow is a fraud, and a veritable retraction machine.
CBS News is reporting that MSNBC has reported that NBC News has confirmed that the New York Times has identified an anonymous source who overheard someone close to the former administration claim that a person in Trump's inner circle stated on a private phone call that Trump is...controlled by Satan!
Glenn, I say without sarcasm or hyperbole that you are likely the most important journalist in the U.S. right now. There are no other voices with a public platform who have the combination of your credibility, reach and courage. Please do not stop shaming those in the media, govt. and corporate America who have abandoned any commitment to honor, truth and dignity in the era of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is McCarthyism on steroids and we must have the courage to put it down. Please stay the course in the face of the certain coordinated attacks you will face from those you are holding accountable.
"McCarthyism" is not the correct word. Sen. McCarthy only listed members of the administration about whom he had information that they were Communists or Soviet spies. More than 90% of them were shown to be in fact as he claimed, once the Venona documents were declassified in 1995 (there is a good book on the documents by Haynes and Klehr issued in 1999 by Yale University Press). McCarthy did not attack people outside the government (though some he listed had been fired shortly before he identified them).
You seem to think McCarthyism was limited to the congressional investigations and hearings. The impact of McCarthy went well beyond the halls of Congress and resulted in the spread of fear and retribution throughout society, which is exactly the impact of the modern progressive/woke movement.
There were certainly abuses in both the House and Senate over several decades, including those directed by Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s. That said, McCarthyism is a phrase coined to describe making false accusations and using political repression to attack a certain group through fear of various forms of punishment for a set of beliefs. I don’t really get what your point is, but if it is to defend Joe McCarthy then let’s agree to disagree.
But McCarthy was largely correct. One of his major errors was accusing George Marshall, when in fact Marshall was ignorant about how communist agents were running our diplomacy in Chain and the late 1940s.
The book is long (460 pages) and detailed. Here is what is said in the "Introduction: The Road to Venona":
"As out computers correlated the evidence we found, first at RTsKhIDNI in Moscow [the Soviet Comintern archives] and then in the Venona decryptions, as they printed out the names, not of "few," but of hundreds of American Communists who abetted the Soviet espionage in the United States; as we read the deciphered messages showing that regional CPUSA officials, members of the party's most powerful body, the Politboro, and the party chief himself knowingly and purposefully assisted Soviet spies, it became clear that espionage was a regular activity of the American Communist party."
Appendix A has an annotated list of 349 names, all living in the U.S., and most citizens or permanent residents. Appendix B lists another 139 citizens or permanent residents who were not in Venona documents but identified in others. The U.S. employment (mostly government) is listed for each as is the Soviet agency they worked for (mostly the KGB).
The best book about this aspect is "Blacklisted by History" by M. Stanton Evans, published in 2007. This covers the cases listed by Senator McCarthy in considerable detail (the book is 650 pages).
On page 39, for example, the author lists a set of ten listed by McCarthy, and that all of them were identified in the Venona documents as USSR spies or agents. The book continues to check the persons listed by McCarthy but I don't have time at the moment to go through all of it. There are chapters on specific persons, for example, chapter 42 on Annie Lee Moss and Mary Markward.
if you think mccarthyism is an unjust term (it's in the dictionary though), you could try to launch 'bidenism' (or whatever dem politician that will lead the charge).
The purpose of modern corporate journalism is not to report facts but to shape public opinion and promote an elitist narrative. Judged by these criteria they are not comitting malpractice but rather fulfilling their mission.
I concur. Perhaps the most troubling term they use is, “misinformation.” Can you imagine Walter Cronkite declaring that Nixon was spreading “misinformation?” Nixon was a pathological liar, but the media treated him fairly and with civility. The corporate media today have extended Orwell’s two minutes of hate to 24/7.
There is a different awful media lie repeated in the very WSJ article Glenn uses here to show that WaPo lied.
It's the repeated media lie that Trump told the GA SoS to "find" him votes. The WSJ article Glenn cited here links to another WSJ article with the headline that Trump told the GA SoS to "find" him votes, but then quotes Trump as saying "I just need to find 11,000 votes". Which is the closest thing he said on that call to asking the SoS anything, and is most certainly not explictly asking the SoS to find him those votes. It's all so shameful.
I kinda knew that one would be a lie if I checked it out, so I waited a while to do it before confirming. Then I never even bothered to check this one that Glenn just debunked, since I'm finally learning my lessons after five years. One can now simply assume the media are lying to us rather than spend valuable time doing the research. We wasted enough of our lives on them.
Agreed. And as Matt Taibbi stated in a whisper towards the absolute bottom of an essay last year, the surveillance & infiltration by Obama’s CIA, FBI, et al of Trump, the opposition candidate, puts Watergate in the shade. The hounding of Trump for five years was the massive scandal that dare not speaks it name. The corporate media detailed endlessly how Obama’s security services used every resource to bring down Trump, including blatant disinformation from Putin’s Kremlin. That’s pure, shabby banana republic, but everyone with with a platform just yawns.
Hey, anybody remember the "Durham Report?" This was supposed to be an investigation of the deep state's involvement in the Russia witch hunt. Durham waited to release until after the election (wouldn't want to influence that). And when Biden won, Durham decided "nah, on second thought let's not do this after all." Report is never released (except down the memory hole) and Durham retires. Nothing to see there.
And Trump also ordered declassification of the Russiagate docs. But the CIA "overruled" him and kept them secret. More nothing to see.
Durham resigned as a federal prosecutor (at Biden's request as is typical when an administration comes in, though when it was the Trump administration the media would play it as signs of a great problem with Trump) but is still pursuing charges as a special prosecutor. The result with Clinsesmith doesn't bode well for real repercussions, though. Read JusttheNews coverage of this.
Durham is working from Muellers old office at the DOJ in DC. He retired from the Connecticut Federal Attorney job, but he's still a special prosecutor.
Everyone should read James Ellroy. American Tabloid is a 1995 novel by James Ellroy that chronicles the events surrounding three rogue American law enforcement officers from November 22, 1958, through November 22, 1963. Each becomes entangled in a web of interconnecting associations between the FBI, the CIA, and the mafia, which eventually leads to their collective involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
American Tabloid was Time's Best Book (Fiction) for 1995. It is the first novel in Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy, followed by The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover.
Off topic, but I wonder if anyone else noticed that Jodie Foster was snubbed by Academy voters for an actress nomination on the movie about the Guantanamo prisoner Glenn Greenwald wrote about a few days ago? Two Golden Globe nominations but crickets from the Academy? I watched the trailer and she plays his lawyer and the sneaks of her performance seem Oscar worthy. But the “woke” politically correct Academy could not chance Foster giving any mind-blowing political speech in today’s climate, eh? Just seems weird to me. Carry on.....
Remember when the DNC repeatedly lied about having any tie to the fake dossier? Then Devin Nunes and the House subpoenaed Fusion GPS financial records, which proved they were paid (through Perkins Coie) by the DNC? Why wasn't that front-page news everywhere? Talk about memory holing.
Well, in fairness, I don't think it came from Putin or the Kremlin per se. Just a bunch of Russian grifters and opportunists trading gossip and lies for the big $ on offer from the Clinton campaign.
I imagine there’s not much light between them. I think Brennan’s role in the media speak volumes of where we’re at. Anyone recall the Church Commission? And look at all the movies & tv shod lionizing the CIA. My best friend has for years been nursing the theory that Obama is a product of the CIA. That’s a tad too strong for me right now, but Obama is a curious figure. It turns out that nothing is what it seems.
Biden is literally on record as: (a) taking $ from corrupt Ukrainians (through his son) who wanted political favors; and (b) delivering political favors for said corrupt Ukrainians by extorting the Ukraine gov't to fire the prosecutor investigating them.
And yet this is a collective . . . yawn. WTF. By contrast, the NYT wrote 4,000 articles about how Trump needed to be prosecuted under the "emoluments clause" because foreigners stay at his hotels. It's like the very concept of a shared objective reality doesn't even exist anymore.
And I would have said that the purpose of modern corporate journalism is to generate profits for shareholders and sponsors (and I include “public” outlets such as PBS and NPR in this category). This is done by appealing to the wants and needs of increasingly segmented audiences both on the left and on the right. As a business model, it is highly successful. As a means of producing a well informed public, it is an abject failure.
I know Glenn said this, too. But the profit motive doesn't explain the bias. If it did there would be an equal amount of biased media serving the right-wing market. But except for Fox there is virtually none except for marginalized YouTube Channels and low budget AM radio shows.
PBS and NPR are government sponsored, The NYT has a "dual stock" structure that supposedly insulates news decisions from its business side, the WaPo is a shiny toy bought by Bezos for prestige not profit, The Atlantic is owned by Steve Jobs' widow for the same purpose. Etc., etc. The whole journalist ecosystem is left wing activists and everyone else has either been driven out or has left in disgust. Same thing has happened in the Universities.
In fact, I think there is a billion dollar bill laying on the floor for anyone who can start a media competitor to Fox that has credibility on facts but leans right in perspective.
Why is money not the motivating force for left-leaning *corporate* news media? Corporations are, by their very nature, always seeking profits. The pie is only so big, and FOX has sliced off the right piece, which leaves only the left piece for the others to divide up. Moreover, all of the outlets you mentioned are centrist, not truly left-wing. As such, they represent establishment interests, just like the leadership of the Democratic Party. In contrast, FOX is a genuinely right-wing outfit, and even they are facing competition from their right in the form of Newsmax and AON. True leftist voices are almost completely shut out by the Democrat-supporting media. Curiously, the only network that will provide some of them with a platform is FOX.
You seem to be defining "centrist" as the average viewpoint of the media. That's circular reasoning because the whole media is leftist. If you don't think the New York Times is a leftist partisan rag, I don't know what to tell you. The woke NYT is farther to the left (judged against the average American's political opinions), than Fox is to the right. (Which makes sense if you think about: if you are the only outlet on the right your incentive is stay just barely to the right of all your competitors to suck up the biggest slice of the ideological spectrum.)
I am in total disagreement with you on your assessment of the NYT as a leftist partisan rag. It is a Democratic Party partisan rag, which is something quite different. All of the bonafide leftists that I know and admire look down on the Times with contempt. However, I can understand how bonafide rightists might see it as you do.
I was a true believer on this and followed Maddow faithfully for most of the time during Obama's presidency and then through Trump's. She is incredibly persuasive in how she mines stories and digs up facts, so much so that it was very easy to fall into this trap. I read every book on Putin. I read Maddow's book. I believed all of the lines were clearly drawn to prove that he was a groomed Russian stooge. Watch the many movies on streaming about it. It is still absolutely true in the minds of most on the left. That was only the beginning of the hysteria, though. Now that Trump is gone it does not show signs of calming down. In fact, Maddow and everyone at MSNBC and CNN and in the mainstream press continue to behave as though they are STILL oppressed by the fear of Trump. January 6 was their Reichstag Fire to attain absolute power through fear - power across the board. What's most shocking is how the media is just willingly going along with it even now. That Washington Post story is a scandal and yet do a google search and the only stories that come up are on Fox and Newsweek. It should be at such a level of scandal people lose their jobs. But do you think they will? No. Moreover, when you have a media that essentially installed a president they are now invested in defending that president, their administration and all that goes along with it. Thus, they can't begin to untangle the fusion of government and media.
I had a different evolution. I was always a free-market, small government libertarian. Republican, but mostly a natural contrarian and cynical of all politics. I started out thinking Trump was just a clown. But I ended up becoming a pro-Trump partisan simply as a reaction to the insanity of his opponents.
I would never blame anyone for honestly saying they hate Trump because of his obnoxious style or because they disagree with policy X, Y, or Z. I would totally respect that. But instead, the supposed "adults" of our establishments went collectively insane. It was 24/7 calling him and his supporters "nazis," "fascists," rapists, racists, foreign spies. And just lying nonstop about everything. Instead of trying to persuade anyone on policies it was all prosecutions, political frame-jobs, impeachments and deep state sabotage by the "Resistance."
And don't get me started about the coronavirus.
Anyway, with all the things wrong with Trump (and of course there are plenty), he was right that our elite institutions are a big fetid "swamp" in need of drainage.
Well said. I see myself as in the same boat. And I know that because the coverage of Trump has been so hysterical, devoid of any semblance of balance & honesty, the corporate media has pushed me towards Trump, giving him the image of a beleaguered hero against a horde of lying lackeys. They make it difficult to asses Trump soberly. I wish there were a few hundred Greenwalds & Taibbies. The media is our biggest problem.
I couldn't stomach Trump from the git-go. But in America we are drawn to the underdog. The "intelligence" agencies and their media lapdogs did the miraculous. They managed to turn the well-connected, real estate tycoon "billionaire," tv star Donald Trump into the unlikeliest of underdogs. I found myself reflexively defending him at every breaking news garbage dump. Since almost every story against him turned out to be false, it was impossible not to feel sorry for him. While I still can't stand the sight of him, my relationship with MSM is irrevocably severed. And, for me, George Bush, not Trump, is the worst president in U.S. history.
Yes! Trump is a repulsive figure. I confess I appreciate his attempts to avoid slaughtering innocents in stupid-yet-lucrative wars, and to decouple from China, but he is a sort of anti-leader, cruel parody of a statesman. But the rehabilitation of Bush makes me sick. The photo of a grinning Dubya & Michelle says it all. So yes, I concur entirely that Bush II was the worst president by a mile.
I feel the same way, Donna. I once asked my (Russia-gate espousing) friend "If everything you say is true about Trump, how many people died? Compare that to Iraq?" He couldn't answer it.
I'll never understand how thinking, logical people find it impossible to make assessments based on simple common sense principles -- at least when it comes to Trump. Bush, aided and abetted by Cheney, was an ignorant, lying, dangerous, mass-murdering, cold-hearted, gleefully torturing, villainous nightmare. Somehow the media turned bumbling Trump into Hitler. And people fell for it by the millions. I'm still bewildered by it all.
Sadly a great friend of 55 years called me a racist because I became his supporter. It’s incredible how narrow minded ppl can be.
As Glenn and many others pointed out during the administration, the exact same Congress members who called him a racist, a Russian colluder, and a threat to our democracy, were often the very same ones voting to give him greater powers. The only thing worse than our elites' cowardice is their mendacity.
I saw/see myself as Trump tolerant, but not a supporter. This is how I have felt about all presidents in my lifetime. Admit, though, that I feel very sorry for the dumb bastard devolving into Chewbacca-in-Chief before our very eyes.
Take heart, Sasha - MSM is also ignoring the developing story of more Americans beginning to wake up and seeing the "Government/Media Fusion" for what it is and rejecting corporate media. You won't see their crumbling faith in google search either.
That Hannah Arendt quote is sold gold! She never fails to impress me. Here’s some more from Hannah:
It has frequently been observed that terror can rule absolutely only over people who are isolated against each other and that therefore one of the primary concerns of tyrannical government is to bring this isolation about. Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from people acting together, acting in concert; isolated people are powerless by definition.
All the power brokers do is sell protection from the very fear they are here to tell you about.
Stop this classist nonsense....do you really think evil billionaires are sitting around "plotting on how to hold poor people down".
To quote Frank Lopez in Scarface "you bought that line".
"I will do all your reading, and I will tell you what to think about it." - Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk back radio presenter, 20 January 1991.
Funny how that parallels today's MSM's "Here's What You Need to Know" headlines.
Mark Judge as well.
"I Knew the Dragon's Name"
https://stream.org/i-knew-the-name-of-the-dragon/
Congratulations on escaping the cave! Other than Maddow's persuasive effect, were there other reasons you accepted these stories? What priors did you have that might have made these stories seem credible? And, most important, what changed your mind?
I know two people--one in her 80s and one in his 60s-- who had never paid attention to politics until they were hypnotized by Maddow. They would repeat the same stories with the same phrases to me and they did not know each other. One thing they had in common is that they were lonely and watched a lot of TV.
It's all kind of mind blowing to me as I always thought I was a skeptical person, an atheist, etc. But I really was about as tribal of a centrist Democrat as you could possibly imagine. I was one of the blue checks on Twitter going after people like Glenn here. He still has me blocked on Twitter. I really don't understand why things came tumbling down for me but they did. I just saw how much of an illusion it was this past year and from then on I could no longer watch MSNBC or CNN or even read The NY Times or listen to NPR. It all just seemed like propaganda all of a sudden. I am still having a hard time finding a way to just get actual news. Or to find some sort of fairness. I can't really articulate it. But once the spell was broken then I could read Glenn, I could read Taibbi, I could listen to conservatives or people like Joe Rogan who were verboten. I just felt like I was finally able to have the ability to listen and read and learn without feeling like I was betraying my tribe.
Follow people who don’t lie to you, no matter their political beliefs
There aren’t many out there. Do you have a list?
Well on sub stack I follow Glenn, Matt, and Bari Weiss. I like Mollie Hemingway. BTW honest mistakes with appropriate apologies are acceptable to me.
Hoover Institution is also a good place - Goodfellas and Victor David Hanson podcasts are pretty good
"an atheist" is another badge to lose as an acknowledgment of some enlightenment. As it obviously does not mean you can not believe in something quite religiously.
Omg that sounds like the cringeworthy apologies made to the woke.
"I'm an atheist" is often displayed as a sign of some ultimate enlightenment. Whereas the proofs are it's anything but.
What are some of the "proofs" you speak about?
I am a believer but appreciate someone who has REALLY thought about it yet decides the evidence favors non-belief.
Sasha, are you able to pinpoint anything at all that you thing started the dominos falling? What got you out of the bubble? Thanks for sharing.
The breaking point for me was the pandemic and the protests and how they were being covered, but specifically the freak out at the Times over the Tom Cotton essay. What I saw was Left Twitter joining forces to pressure the Times to fire James Bennett then rationalizing all the reasons why that was the right thing to do. But also the whole "mostly peaceful protests" gaslighting and how the media was essentially rigging an election before our eyes and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It never really got any better. There was never any balance. But I did migrate around to get different POVs. The pandemic was a complete absurdity -- a political party so invested in winning an election they were willing to crash the economy just so they could blame Trump. When the protests happened the pandemic disappeared but either way the story had to be told only one way. Now I know it was planned out and orchestrated -- but back then I thought I was losing my mind. Glenn and Matt Taibbi are among the few who will report on things journalists will not. And that makes them of so much much value to me - and it makes them dangerous. I'm sure Substack won't last.
"The pandemic was a complete absurdity -- a political party so invested in winning an election they were willing to crash the economy just so they could blame Trump. When the protests happened the pandemic disappeared but either way the story had to be told only one way. Now I know it was planned out and orchestrated -- but back then I thought I was losing my mind."
Bravo. Exactly right. A hearty welcome to the reality-based community.
I am hopeful that sooner or later this orchestrated "pandemic" will be the catalyst for a general awakening. There is a ruling class that feeding off all of us that has become expert at implementing a tactic familiar to the Romans:
Divide et impera.
While they have the rest of us distracted fighting over red vs. blue, racism, masks, insurrections, Iranian and Russian boogeymen and invisible greenhouse gases, they are laughing all the way to the bank.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
~H. L. Mencken
It has been my experience that the realization has to come individually, and usually cannot be accelerated by the presentation of facts and reason to the victim.
The best one can do, perhaps, it to lay the groundwork for the next head to emerge from the sand so they know they are not alone when they finally see the sun.
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
– Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841
Yes! Yell it from the rooftops.
I think I'm sharing this one. What fabulous quotes!
They're coming for substack for sure. I cancelled my Amazon Prime account after they de-platformed Parler (which Glenn testified eloquently on before Congress; my favorite GG essay by FAR). But until enough people demand the restoration of freedom of speech, WITH THEIR WALLETS, this madness will just continue.
I went a little further and cancelled cable and Amazon Prime No more Starbucks also, giving Duck-Duck-Go and Telegram my business. I rather spend my $ on GG and Taibbi.
On canceling Prime, I considered the same but as I understand it, they were unable to procure cloud hosting services from any other US providers. That seems insane to me but in this day and age, it is believable. Would you shutter your Google account and Microsoft O365 subscription too? What about your Xbox Live account and your iPhone? They were all complicit in some way. I don't know the answer here. Just a question.
I hope “their wallets” are sufficient.
I fear for them personally and professionally.
I'm undecided about how political lockdowns were. There was already a tendency to overhype pandemics before Trump and during this one a lot of people died. At least in theory, lockdowns could help, although any real-world benefit seems modest. Is the CDC so persuasive that they bamboozled the whole Western world into these same policies? A pandemic response under Hillary Clinton might well have been similar, just that she would have been blamed less.
The trouble is, they kept moving the goalposts. (First it was a few weeks to level the curve; eg. make sure we have enough hospital beds. Then eventually it became "until we have a vaccine" - now it's "until EVERYONE is vaccinated").
And the lockdowns were different by state. You can just compare NY to FL and see the difference politics make.
But could Hilary Clinton possibly have worked with industry leaders to get all the supplies (PPE, ventilators, etc.) provided in excellent time, and to coordinate research and production of the vaccines in record time? President Trump had decades of experience getting companies to work together on his projects; Clinton had minimal executive experience.
I believe the main reason why this pandemic killed so many ppl was the division within the country. Many blue states took it too far. It became a race to trash Trump and his administration.
The key to exposing the real position of the Lefties is to take a public stance hard to the left of them and make noise with it.
They don't want to go back to school this school year? Demand at a school board meeting that you know hundreds of teachers who don't want to go back next year either and we all ought to just accept that our kids won't be back in in class school until 2023 at the earliest..in the fall.
You have to get to the woke side of a wokeist to expose how woke they really are.
Sure you're just gaslighting them..but isn't that what they're doing to us?
Substack will be fine. It's easy to host Substack since it doesn't involve a bunch of server hits constantly. Social media requires the ability to ramp instantly up when a company grows, but Substack is basically just a blog platform. AWS could kick it off (if it's hosted on AWS), and it can readily find a new home.
Good point. The original SubStackers really were Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh going straight at their own audience.
Why fight with editors all day and let the publisher steal the profit from your good words, good deeds, and good works?
With today's technology and networks, there's simply no need.
When's Kevin Williamson coming over?
Good for you, Sasha. It took living in South America for me to realize that everything I believed politically had so little benefit to making the world a better place. I trust Glenn has learned much from his host country, my beloved Brasil, which is a beautiful, flawed nation where hypocrisy can be swallowed hole, unlike here in the US where we actually believe ourselves. As have you now, I became skeptical of everything and have found far greater satisfaction in the direct, harsh sun than in the comfort of the shadows.
So many people have been unquestionably taken in by Maddow and her fellow partisan propagandists. Maddow has done as much harm to her viewers as FOX News did when Roger Ailes ran the show.
Sasha Stone, I was a loyalist to Rachel Maddow until the 2016 Democratic Primary when she hosted the first debate with Bernie Sanders. She had previously been cordial to Bernie, but that night she venomously attacked him. I was shocked and never trusted her again. She only got worse and worse. I can't even look at that evil liar anymore. She rubs her hands together when she gets going like the cruel witch she is. Welcome back to the living.
The News Nation out of Chicago seems to be straight news...like CNN used to be.
Sasha, you could maybe add Tammy Bruce and Leo Terrell to a list of conservative view points, both are "reformed liberals". I would also suggest reading Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams (unfortunately now deceased).
Next you should try Michael Malice.
My aunt, who was addicted to MSNBC and QVC, would agree to watch house remodeling shows and cooking shows when I visited--and we would talk the entire time. She just wanted company and was, in fact, very good company herself. She formed the same emotional attachments to MSNBC anchors as she did to QVC hosts, and would talk with concern about Katy Tur's rough pregnancy and Marie Osmond's health problems. I suspect that propagandists have learned a lot from QVC and its "easy pay" scam and its method of enmeshing viewers in hosts' lives.
Maybe you could get her to appreciate Tucker for a different experience. 😂
I'm heartened to read your comment. I went through a similar transition away from the left about 20 years ago, but the media and societal environment wasn't quite as charged back then, so mine was much slower. I'd like to report that it gets easier, but, sadly, it doesn't in our highly conformist and increasingly tribal society. Regardless, truth and principles are more important, and Greenwald has provided all of us a profile in courage for years now, and it's not really about left/right. He's my favorite journalist, and I doubt we generally or ever vote the same since I've been center/right for many years. Actual liberals like Greenwald and a few brave others are ESSENTIAL to a functioning society with a commitment to civil liberties. I haven't shared any articles by conservative writers about all of the civil liberties shenanigans since 1/8, but I've shared a number of columns from this substack. These days I get a lot of crap from both the left and the right. It doesn't matter - what matters is the commitment to liberalism, the bedrock of our society and civilization. Truth matters. Stay strong!
I'm a liberal who finally quit the Democratic Party after 49 years. The party left me years before that. The essence of liberalism is tolerance, something I don't see today in any part of the Vast Woke-Wing Conspiracy. I'm a fan of the US Constitution, admire its brilliance and the liberties it enables.
The consequences of the Folie a Deux playing itself out in the media are serious. The false narrative of the Georgia phone call and the equally false narrative of Officer Sicknick's death both made their way into the impeachment documents. Will they be amended, or will they be used as documentary "proof" of false narratives?
Along with civility, journalism and our economy, we're destroying the profession of historians. That may prove to be the worst sin of all.
The truly sad part is that there are equally good, hard working people on the other side of the aisle being duped by RHINO Fox News just like folks on the left are by MSNBC. I’m so sick of good folks being played way above and beyond what is par for modern democratic government. The internet has driven disinformation into HYPER SPEED. Crazy...
Have watched FOX for years. Can’t say I’ve ever felt “duped”. I have never seen anything like the Russiagate fiasco.
Remember Benghazi? This was almost as big a fiasco for Fox News as the Russiagate fiasco. But only almost, the Russiagate conspiracy took the prize.
What about Benghazi? What did Foxnews do that was bad reporting there? I certainly know that the MSM took Hillary's story about some filmmaker being the cause of the riots that eventually led to the deaths of four Americans, one of whom was a friend of Hillary's. (That's loyalty for ya!).
Hillary has friends?
Ha!
>Now that Trump is gone it does not show signs of calming down.
It's the only thing that has kept them in business. They have nothing else, so they have to push this even harder. I think Mr. Greenwald has said a fair bit about this and I know several other journalists/commentators I listen to/read have. They'll keep milking this cow until it's bone dry and then they'll slaughter the cow.
That you were a true believer who eventually saw through it is evidence, imo, that as they keep pushing, more and more people will get wise to the game. How much damage will be done before these modern-day muckrakers join the yellow journalists of the past is scary to think about, but this stuff doesn't just go on without end. Take heart, buckle down, and keep talking to people. As long as we're talking to each other, we're less likely to start fighting.
Maddow was sued a year or two ago by another station, I think OAN, but it doesn’t matter. The charge was that Maddow accused the other reporter of something ridiculous, like being a Russian agent. Maddow’s defense attorney offered, in defense of his client, that no one actually believes Maddow anyway, so no harm was done to the other reporter. It worked. Imagine your defense being—- no one believes what you say. That’s how ridiculous she has always been.
There is no accountability on the left. The Obama admin spied on an opposition presidential candidate and no one was held responsible. Leaders of security services routinely lie to Congress and are not held responsible. The left and the Media savage a Supreme Court nominee and lie and no one is held accountable. But dare to gather in DC and question an obviously fraudulent election and the FBI will send APC”s to your doorstep. I wonder how long you can push people and deny justice before the breaking point
"followed Maddow faithfully" - makes sense now when you finally woke up you were like: Fuck yeah!
ISWYDT!
Thank you for your comments here and below, Sasha, and to those posing questions about your process. I went through the same thing during President Obama's last term. Life has become much more interesting; living in the world of ideas - all sorts of them. It happened little by little for me; bits here and there that didn't add up and I knew not to be true. But it was the media, their blatant dishonesty, and gaslighting that led the way.
what you point to is for each of us to do an honest assessment of what makes this nation great and what are things that you do that make it great, and what can you do tomorrow to make it better?
Once you find that True North and your Objective Truth, don't let the Nihilists, Anarchists, NeoLiberals or NeoConfederates or anyone else move you off that position. Read more...watch less tv.
I actually watch Jimmy Dore a lot and more podcasts and subscriber to 3 writers here along with paid subscriptions to National Review, Wall Street Journal and China Today,
Russia may be a provocateur, but they don't own a $1.5 billion private equity fund in which our US President owns a 10% stake while sharing with family his disappointment that he's always had to give 1/2 his income to "Pops".
When we have a guy in the White House who is mentally struggling and we have ample evidence that he and his son own a $150,000,000 stake in a CCP owned private equity fund, you can begin to understand why taking Hong Kong and Taiwan and the South China Sea will appear to be taking candy from a baby..in exchange for reasserting support for the Paris Climate Accord targets that hold them to account of NADA!!!
Sorry..the son of our US President owns Harvest Inc...still listed as of 2 minutes ago as a partner and board member and owner of HDR.
Brocton Lockwood said it best, all power-brokers sell the exact same thing - Fear.
I did a DuckDuckGo search just now (200 pm CDT) and there are articles in The Hill (objective) and Vox (biased in favor of the Post). Nothing in the NY Times. Nothing in CBS News ...
Indeed!
Well, you see they all are the erudite elite who "know better than we" ignorant masses. They have been "trained [indoctrinated]" in prominent universities by learned professors.
Those learned professors went to school when they were six years old and never left school. The are still there indoctrinating students with their six year old mind's stratospheric fairy tale ideals. They indoctrinate their mindless dupes to ram into everyone those fairy tale ideals, non-functional far down on an earth full of very non-ideal people.
So you see now the media propagandists using many standard propaganda tricks, like leaving out any contrary information, adding neutral information feigning it as "opposing" thought, stitching together barely or non-related events (Maddow is particularly adept at that), presenting comment snippets out of context to distort the comment making it seem other than it was, many more tricks, and even lies now.
Congratulations for opening your eyes. Sadly ever mindless emoters gladly eat up the propaganda crap just because they like its "feel." Their mindlessness never notices what twisted crap it is. Propaganda traps are always intended to evoke feeling and discourage thinking. The propagandists know if their suckers begin thinking their fraud could be discovered.
That very successful propaganda crap has removed a very “bad daddy” the spoiled and sheltered elite children in adult bodies (also knowing better than the “ignorant” people) hated. Now the elite little children have a wonderful new “daddy and mommy” smiley-faced tyrants who “know even more so better than the rest of us.”
Love your comment! Welcome back to reality.
The prior probability of Trump being Putin's favored candidate seemed very small to me. First of all, Clinton, an abject political mediocrity if there ever was one, was a known quantity. Under 8 years of Obama/Clinton/Kerry, Putin had advanced from a near-nonentity to major player on the world stage. Why on earth would he want a wild card like Trump, especially when Trump was promising a variety of moves that would hurt Russia? For a coldly calculating bureaucrat like Putin to gamble on Trump made no sense. The notion that Putin had tons of dirt on Trump made no sense either. Consider Hillary's "charitable foundation" slush fund. Even several of my committed Trump-hating friends admit the "foundation," and Hillary's behavior stuffing it with cash, are a scandal that should have resulted in criminal prosecution. There is no evidence of any such scandal involving Trump.
Maddow is a fraud, and a veritable retraction machine.
CBS News is reporting that MSNBC has reported that NBC News has confirmed that the New York Times has identified an anonymous source who overheard someone close to the former administration claim that a person in Trump's inner circle stated on a private phone call that Trump is...controlled by Satan!
I, for one, will need confirmation from WaPo before I can believe that.
Narcissus approves of your message.....
And Hillary controls Satan. FINAL BOSS of the Deep State? 😂
Naw . . . This just in . . . Hillary is Satan
Please. Hillary just flies for Satan, just as her monkeys fly for her.
Not what my highly placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has stated.
Glenn, I say without sarcasm or hyperbole that you are likely the most important journalist in the U.S. right now. There are no other voices with a public platform who have the combination of your credibility, reach and courage. Please do not stop shaming those in the media, govt. and corporate America who have abandoned any commitment to honor, truth and dignity in the era of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is McCarthyism on steroids and we must have the courage to put it down. Please stay the course in the face of the certain coordinated attacks you will face from those you are holding accountable.
"McCarthyism" is not the correct word. Sen. McCarthy only listed members of the administration about whom he had information that they were Communists or Soviet spies. More than 90% of them were shown to be in fact as he claimed, once the Venona documents were declassified in 1995 (there is a good book on the documents by Haynes and Klehr issued in 1999 by Yale University Press). McCarthy did not attack people outside the government (though some he listed had been fired shortly before he identified them).
You seem to think McCarthyism was limited to the congressional investigations and hearings. The impact of McCarthy went well beyond the halls of Congress and resulted in the spread of fear and retribution throughout society, which is exactly the impact of the modern progressive/woke movement.
Perhaps you are thinking of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) an d its impact from 1938 forward.
There were certainly abuses in both the House and Senate over several decades, including those directed by Joe McCarthy in the 1950’s. That said, McCarthyism is a phrase coined to describe making false accusations and using political repression to attack a certain group through fear of various forms of punishment for a set of beliefs. I don’t really get what your point is, but if it is to defend Joe McCarthy then let’s agree to disagree.
But McCarthy was largely correct. One of his major errors was accusing George Marshall, when in fact Marshall was ignorant about how communist agents were running our diplomacy in Chain and the late 1940s.
China
does it say in the book how many were communists and how many were soviet spies?
The book is long (460 pages) and detailed. Here is what is said in the "Introduction: The Road to Venona":
"As out computers correlated the evidence we found, first at RTsKhIDNI in Moscow [the Soviet Comintern archives] and then in the Venona decryptions, as they printed out the names, not of "few," but of hundreds of American Communists who abetted the Soviet espionage in the United States; as we read the deciphered messages showing that regional CPUSA officials, members of the party's most powerful body, the Politboro, and the party chief himself knowingly and purposefully assisted Soviet spies, it became clear that espionage was a regular activity of the American Communist party."
Appendix A has an annotated list of 349 names, all living in the U.S., and most citizens or permanent residents. Appendix B lists another 139 citizens or permanent residents who were not in Venona documents but identified in others. The U.S. employment (mostly government) is listed for each as is the Soviet agency they worked for (mostly the KGB).
but no lists of names and numbers of communists swept up in mccarthyism who weren't spies probably?
The best book about this aspect is "Blacklisted by History" by M. Stanton Evans, published in 2007. This covers the cases listed by Senator McCarthy in considerable detail (the book is 650 pages).
On page 39, for example, the author lists a set of ten listed by McCarthy, and that all of them were identified in the Venona documents as USSR spies or agents. The book continues to check the persons listed by McCarthy but I don't have time at the moment to go through all of it. There are chapters on specific persons, for example, chapter 42 on Annie Lee Moss and Mary Markward.
if you think mccarthyism is an unjust term (it's in the dictionary though), you could try to launch 'bidenism' (or whatever dem politician that will lead the charge).
Who needs lists? Look at fresh accusations of meddling. Now imagine 50 years from now how they're going to be read and perceived.
1000's of members of the patriot trumpism party will be implicated ...
Thank you. I'll look at our copy.
The purpose of modern corporate journalism is not to report facts but to shape public opinion and promote an elitist narrative. Judged by these criteria they are not comitting malpractice but rather fulfilling their mission.
I concur. Perhaps the most troubling term they use is, “misinformation.” Can you imagine Walter Cronkite declaring that Nixon was spreading “misinformation?” Nixon was a pathological liar, but the media treated him fairly and with civility. The corporate media today have extended Orwell’s two minutes of hate to 24/7.
There is a different awful media lie repeated in the very WSJ article Glenn uses here to show that WaPo lied.
It's the repeated media lie that Trump told the GA SoS to "find" him votes. The WSJ article Glenn cited here links to another WSJ article with the headline that Trump told the GA SoS to "find" him votes, but then quotes Trump as saying "I just need to find 11,000 votes". Which is the closest thing he said on that call to asking the SoS anything, and is most certainly not explictly asking the SoS to find him those votes. It's all so shameful.
I kinda knew that one would be a lie if I checked it out, so I waited a while to do it before confirming. Then I never even bothered to check this one that Glenn just debunked, since I'm finally learning my lessons after five years. One can now simply assume the media are lying to us rather than spend valuable time doing the research. We wasted enough of our lives on them.
It’s kind of amusing now looking back that such a petty crime brought down Nixon.
There’s been a rather rapid societal shift towards cynicism since.
Agreed. And as Matt Taibbi stated in a whisper towards the absolute bottom of an essay last year, the surveillance & infiltration by Obama’s CIA, FBI, et al of Trump, the opposition candidate, puts Watergate in the shade. The hounding of Trump for five years was the massive scandal that dare not speaks it name. The corporate media detailed endlessly how Obama’s security services used every resource to bring down Trump, including blatant disinformation from Putin’s Kremlin. That’s pure, shabby banana republic, but everyone with with a platform just yawns.
Hey, anybody remember the "Durham Report?" This was supposed to be an investigation of the deep state's involvement in the Russia witch hunt. Durham waited to release until after the election (wouldn't want to influence that). And when Biden won, Durham decided "nah, on second thought let's not do this after all." Report is never released (except down the memory hole) and Durham retires. Nothing to see there.
And Trump also ordered declassification of the Russiagate docs. But the CIA "overruled" him and kept them secret. More nothing to see.
Durham resigned as a federal prosecutor (at Biden's request as is typical when an administration comes in, though when it was the Trump administration the media would play it as signs of a great problem with Trump) but is still pursuing charges as a special prosecutor. The result with Clinsesmith doesn't bode well for real repercussions, though. Read JusttheNews coverage of this.
The Durham investigation is still continuing. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/john-durham-resigns-as-u-s-attorney-but-his-investigation-of-the-russia-investigation-will-continue-on/ar-BB1e3o7U
Durham is working from Muellers old office at the DOJ in DC. He retired from the Connecticut Federal Attorney job, but he's still a special prosecutor.
Trump should count his blessings. Remember what happened to the last President who took on the CIA? His initials were JFK.
They did essentially the same thing. Different times, different tools, same effect.
Everyone should read James Ellroy. American Tabloid is a 1995 novel by James Ellroy that chronicles the events surrounding three rogue American law enforcement officers from November 22, 1958, through November 22, 1963. Each becomes entangled in a web of interconnecting associations between the FBI, the CIA, and the mafia, which eventually leads to their collective involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
American Tabloid was Time's Best Book (Fiction) for 1995. It is the first novel in Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy, followed by The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover.
Thanks for your very clear, concise statement!
Off topic, but I wonder if anyone else noticed that Jodie Foster was snubbed by Academy voters for an actress nomination on the movie about the Guantanamo prisoner Glenn Greenwald wrote about a few days ago? Two Golden Globe nominations but crickets from the Academy? I watched the trailer and she plays his lawyer and the sneaks of her performance seem Oscar worthy. But the “woke” politically correct Academy could not chance Foster giving any mind-blowing political speech in today’s climate, eh? Just seems weird to me. Carry on.....
Spot on!
"blatant disinformation from Putin’s Kremlin" - the educational impact of Rush Limbaugh and Co on display.
You might want to learn a little about the Steele Dossier...
Remember when the DNC repeatedly lied about having any tie to the fake dossier? Then Devin Nunes and the House subpoenaed Fusion GPS financial records, which proved they were paid (through Perkins Coie) by the DNC? Why wasn't that front-page news everywhere? Talk about memory holing.
Well, in fairness, I don't think it came from Putin or the Kremlin per se. Just a bunch of Russian grifters and opportunists trading gossip and lies for the big $ on offer from the Clinton campaign.
One question: are the Obama’s forces, or the spook’s Obama
I imagine there’s not much light between them. I think Brennan’s role in the media speak volumes of where we’re at. Anyone recall the Church Commission? And look at all the movies & tv shod lionizing the CIA. My best friend has for years been nursing the theory that Obama is a product of the CIA. That’s a tad too strong for me right now, but Obama is a curious figure. It turns out that nothing is what it seems.
He had a very quick climb up the ladder, for what that's worth.
Biden is literally on record as: (a) taking $ from corrupt Ukrainians (through his son) who wanted political favors; and (b) delivering political favors for said corrupt Ukrainians by extorting the Ukraine gov't to fire the prosecutor investigating them.
And yet this is a collective . . . yawn. WTF. By contrast, the NYT wrote 4,000 articles about how Trump needed to be prosecuted under the "emoluments clause" because foreigners stay at his hotels. It's like the very concept of a shared objective reality doesn't even exist anymore.
And I would have said that the purpose of modern corporate journalism is to generate profits for shareholders and sponsors (and I include “public” outlets such as PBS and NPR in this category). This is done by appealing to the wants and needs of increasingly segmented audiences both on the left and on the right. As a business model, it is highly successful. As a means of producing a well informed public, it is an abject failure.
I know Glenn said this, too. But the profit motive doesn't explain the bias. If it did there would be an equal amount of biased media serving the right-wing market. But except for Fox there is virtually none except for marginalized YouTube Channels and low budget AM radio shows.
PBS and NPR are government sponsored, The NYT has a "dual stock" structure that supposedly insulates news decisions from its business side, the WaPo is a shiny toy bought by Bezos for prestige not profit, The Atlantic is owned by Steve Jobs' widow for the same purpose. Etc., etc. The whole journalist ecosystem is left wing activists and everyone else has either been driven out or has left in disgust. Same thing has happened in the Universities.
In fact, I think there is a billion dollar bill laying on the floor for anyone who can start a media competitor to Fox that has credibility on facts but leans right in perspective.
Why is money not the motivating force for left-leaning *corporate* news media? Corporations are, by their very nature, always seeking profits. The pie is only so big, and FOX has sliced off the right piece, which leaves only the left piece for the others to divide up. Moreover, all of the outlets you mentioned are centrist, not truly left-wing. As such, they represent establishment interests, just like the leadership of the Democratic Party. In contrast, FOX is a genuinely right-wing outfit, and even they are facing competition from their right in the form of Newsmax and AON. True leftist voices are almost completely shut out by the Democrat-supporting media. Curiously, the only network that will provide some of them with a platform is FOX.
You seem to be defining "centrist" as the average viewpoint of the media. That's circular reasoning because the whole media is leftist. If you don't think the New York Times is a leftist partisan rag, I don't know what to tell you. The woke NYT is farther to the left (judged against the average American's political opinions), than Fox is to the right. (Which makes sense if you think about: if you are the only outlet on the right your incentive is stay just barely to the right of all your competitors to suck up the biggest slice of the ideological spectrum.)
I am in total disagreement with you on your assessment of the NYT as a leftist partisan rag. It is a Democratic Party partisan rag, which is something quite different. All of the bonafide leftists that I know and admire look down on the Times with contempt. However, I can understand how bonafide rightists might see it as you do.
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
This media bias chart looks pretty balanced to me.